Secret Agent
Pre-Hollywood Alfred Hitchcock is not a complete blindspot to me, but it’s enough of one that I felt like it was time to delve back into the Master of Suspense’s British films. His 1936 thriller, “Secret Agent,” is not as nimble as films like his original “The Man Who Knew Too Much” or “The 39 Steps,” but the performances still engage.
Adapting from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, this is a spy mystery set in WWI about British spies tasked with identifying and eliminating a German agent. One of the mysteries of this film is how Peter Lorre (a Hungarian actor, to be fair, but also known for his work in Germany at the time) is playing one of the British spies- known only as The General- and not the German agent. One of the other agents is novelist Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) who is forced to set aside his past life and become an agent. His name is now Richard Ashenden, and he is given a wife, Mrs. Ashenden (played by Madeleine Carroll). Together, they take the trek, and at first they think it is one person, only to discover that it is someone else.
The screenplay by Charles Bennett- with additional dialogue by Ian Hay and Jesse Lasky Jr.- doesn’t feel as nimble as other Hitchcock films in terms of its plotting; it almost feels too convoluted. What it is good at, however, is giving these actors characters to dig into. There are some good performances by Gielgud, Carroll and Lorre, with supporting work by Percy Marmont and Robert Young as two of the potential spies. There are moments where the dialogue just pops, but often, the drama doesn’t move with any energy. What we are left with are individual scenes that keep us engaged, but the story just doesn’t click, and at 86 minutes, it doesn’t really feel like it has a conclusion.
One of the things that we can tell in some of Hitch’s most famous early films is that, if the plot and characters were there, he knew how to make that story suspenseful. It’s easy to forget, at times, but Hitchcock didn’t really deal with espionage or political machinations so much as he did ordinary people put in suspenseful situations. That is where he excelled, and I think that is where “Secret Agent” just isn’t his bag. His craft is superb in scenes and with actors, but he just doesn’t feel invested in this as a storyteller. It’s still worth a look, though, for Hitchcock completists.
